Friday, July 9, 2010

I'm actually pretty damn impressed, this Misfits poll really brought in the votes. I've always looked at "Walk Among Us" as THE Misfits album and from the look of things, so do a lot of our readers.

As far as what song won this, it's nice to see that I'm not alone in my love for "Skulls". Not that you can really find many songs that don't shred on this album, but for me, "Skulls" has always stood out and remained one of my favorite Misfits songs ever.

Thinking back to when I first discovered punk and hardcore, the Misfits we're easily one of the first band names I was always hearing. Granted, Glenn had moved on to Samhain by the time I was getting my feet wet in the scene, but the Misfits were still the band that everyone was talking about.

Misfits with John Brannon of Negative Approach up front and singing along, Photo courtesy of: 7th House

Before hearing a single note, my introduction was through the imagery of the Misfits. All the skulls, gore and violence led me to believe that the Misfits most likely had a chaotic, insanely fast, destructive sound similar to a band like Septic Death. Boy was I ever wrong.

I still remember the first time I heard the Misfits, a friend and I were skating and doing bonelesses off the trunk and bumper of an old car. I seem to remember my friend playing a mix tape through his boom box as we thrashed it up. Everything I was hearing back then was pretty much new to me, but when the Misfits came on, it was the song "Skulls" and my mind couldn't calculate what I was hearing. A melodic, well sung, well written song that so pleasantly spoke of hacking the heads off little girls and hanging them on a wall. What the fuck planet did this come from? I was used to hearing some pretty fucked up shocking lyrics, but sung like this and to music like this? I was confused to say the least.

Glenn Danzig... just about as cool as it gets, Photo courtesy of: 7th House

The beauty and attraction to the Misfits back then was that they were so catchy and sounded like something you could play in front of your parents, but once you paid attention to the lyrics and saw the imagery, forget about it, mom was throwing that tape right out the damn window. Luckily for me, I made sure to keep the truth about the Misfits well hidden and my listening went over without a hitch (unlike my listening to Septic Death!).

Close to 25 years later, I'm still listening to the Misfits and every time "Skulls" comes on, the stereo gets jacked a little bit higher. Love him or hate him, yet another reason why Glenn Danzig is a freaking' genius. And the blood drains down like devil's rain, we'll bathe tonight.-Tim DCXX

The Misfits clearly in a league of their own, Photo courtesy of: 7th House

10 comments:

Before I heard the Misfits, I thought they were a crappy heavy metal band. This is mainly because a metalhead dork in my jr. high had a Misfits patch on his leather jacket. Metallica can be blamed for that one.

My loss. They are easily one of the best bands ever. It took me 4-5 years to finally listen to them.

What features do you want to see more of on the new DCXX?

INTRO BUST

Welcome to DOUBLE CROSS - an online fanzine dedicated to the hardcore we love... past, present, and future. The goal is classic fanzine vibe and content, with stories, interviews, photos and more - updated every day through the week. While this might be a "blog," we want it to go beyond what that term typically represents.

And while we are undoubtedly straight edge and will put the best straight edge bands at the heart of this site, in no way does that mean we won't be featuring all of of our other favorite hardcore bands here as well.

Check out the below links for more info on us, as well as what we have been putting up here since beginning construction in March '08. Get in touch if you wanna contribute or just say what's up.X X XTim McMahon / Gordo

THANX:We would like to give thanks and credit to Ken Salerno, Tim Singer / Boiling Point, Dave Sine and all the other photographers that have graced the pages of Double Cross. We could not do this with out you, so thank you very much for your contributions.

Big thanks also to some of our regular contributors, people like Joe Nelson, Billy Rubin, Agent A, Tony Rettman, Jordan Cooper, Larry Ransom, etc. All have been huge assets to Double Cross and we greatly appreciate all your help, effort and time.

Also, we'd like to give thanks to Ed McKirdy over at Livewire Records for lending his help and support to this project.